by Jeff Hale
“Kat?” Aerick’s voice was pitched low. He had discarded his torn bloody shirt and blood still stained his skin, but I couldn’t see any score marks from either Darien’s claws or Katelyn’s. A normal human would have been ripped up, but he must have had some incredibly fast healing power for there to not even be a scar.
“I’m sorry, Aerick, I can’t, not right now,” she whimpered, pushing her head into my chest. “Alex, please take me out of here, please!”
Aerick turned his attention to me, questioning me with his eyes and appraising me at the same time. I put my hands over Katelyn’s ears, knowing it was a poor attempt to block out sound.
“It’s the blood, well partially anyway, and you’re covered in it, you both are.” He gave me a shrug, still not getting it. “Look, let me take her back to her room. You go get cleaned up, then come to her room and I’ll explain it.”
Aerick gave me a wary nod and pointed at Darien, who was standing now and giving us both a stony gaze. “There’s only one reason you’re still breathing, wolf, and that’s because you mean something to her.” His finger moved to indicate Katelyn. “But I warn you now, if you ever fucking attack me again for any reason, all bets are off and I will put you down. Got me?”
Darien gave him a curt nod, absently taking the blanket that the little barmaid had approached with and held out to him, and wrapping it around his hips. I felt a pang of sympathy go through me when he averted his eyes from Aerick’s. I didn’t think Darien had ever had to really back down from anything before and this was eating away at him.
He finally seemed to notice Katelyn, who I was now holding in my arms, her face pressed tightly into my chest, and pain washed through his eyes. He involuntarily began to reach for her, stopping only as I immediately shook my head at him, and then let his hand drop limply to his side.
“I’m going to see if I can find some clothes, and then I’m going across the street to get a room for us.” Darien’s voice was low, subdued. “When she’s feeling a little more herself, tell her I need to talk to her, you know what about.”
I nodded. Aerick had already left the room, and now Darien turned to leave as well, both of them entrusting Katelyn to my care.
“Want me to show you where her room is?”
I had almost forgotten about Nina, who was standing not far from me. She had been silent the whole time, watching the exchange with avid curiosity.
“Sure, Nina,” I responded.
She gave me a brilliant smile, which quickly faded to worry as she reached out and ran a finger down the side of Katelyn’s cheek. “She gonna be okay?”
“Yeah.”
“This way.” She led me out of the dance room, back into the restaurant, and to an alcove on the right hand wall. It opened onto descending stairs. There was a wide corridor at the bottom of the stair, with wood flooring and tasteful wallpaper, chandeliers dangling from the ceiling. There were doors on either wall of the corridor at varying distances from each other, and Nina led me to one of them.
She pushed the door open. “There’s stairs here, heading down. Her room is weird that way, none of the others have stairs like this, but well, it’s her room. Be careful.”
I descended the stairs into a bedroom with a four poster bed. The walls were done in silver and gold and the carpeting was thick and deep red. There was a small dresser and two armchairs in the bedroom. A wide open archway led into a second large room. That one had a couch, more armchairs, end tables and a coffee table, and a huge entertainment center.
“Bed or chair, Katie?” I asked her softly. I knew she was still very wide awake; she was just trying to drown out the rest of the world currently. She sighed, lifting her head, and I could see that her eyes weren’t as dark.
“Chair is fine.”
I set her down in one of the big armchairs in the living room. Nina followed along with a blanket that she had pulled off the foot of the bed, draping it around Katelyn’s shoulders and tucking it around her, before settling cross-legged on the couch end nearest to Katelyn. I sat in the chair on the other side and gave Nina a measuring look.
“You know that what you did was bloody stupid,” I said, my words directed at Nina.
“Huh?” She turned her head to look at me, eyebrows furrowed together.
“She could have done some serious damage to you if you hadn’t been so lucky. Whatever in hell prompted you to tackle a shifter?”
Nina shrugged and gave me a wry smile. “I thought if I got her away from them, I could give her something else to focus on, a different outlet for her… energy.”
“The kiss.” I cocked my head to the side. “This isn’t the first time you’ve kissed her.”
She gave a short laugh. “Perv. But no, it’s not. That’s why I figured doing what I did might turn her attention to something a little less… destructive.”
I suddenly stood and leaned across the coffee table, grabbing Nina’s arm and moving it away from her body, careful inspecting her skin.
“Hey, boy!” She jerked her arm away. “I’m all for you staring at me, but that was kind of rude.”
“Sorry, just making sure she didn’t get you with her claws or teeth. If she did you’d be one of us fully in a month or so.”
“Yeah, I know, you guys explained the whole thing to me. And I’m fine, she didn’t get me.” She gave me a stern look. “And don’t go mentioning any of this to Rick or my boyfriend, okay? I don’t want them to know, at least not yet.”
There was a soft cough and I switched my attention to Katelyn as I sat back down. Her eyes were completely back to normal but her skin was pale, even for her, and worry was evident in her face.
“So what the hell is wrong with me, Alex?” she asked fearfully. “Or was that normal?”
Before I could answer, the door at the top of the bedroom opened and booted feet came quickly down the steps. Aerick walked into the room, freshly showered and a clean button up shirt and jeans on, striding over to Katelyn and leaning over the back of her chair to plant a kiss on her cheek and wrap his arms around her. She hesitated a moment and I could see a fleeting look of shame pass through her eyes, before she tilted her head back so that he could give her a brief kiss on the lips.
“How ya doing, babe?” he asked her, his face softening as he looked at her.
She gave him a crooked, sad smile, but despite the brief flash of shame, her eyes lit up when she saw him, and a pang of jealousy shot through me. “I’m not sure. I was just asking Alex about it to be truthful.”
“Mind if I sit with you?” At her response, he moved to the front of her chair, scooped her up in his arms, sat down and resettled her, blanket and all, on his lap. Then they both looked at me expectantly. “Now who the hell is this guy, anyway?”
“Oh, shit, you’ve never met him…. This is Alex, he’s another shifter, a friend of mine, don’t worry, he’s harmless,” Katelyn told him, her face going pink a few seconds after the words left her mouth. “Sorry, Alex.”
“That’s okay, Katie, Darien’s the Alpha, not me, and sometimes it can come in handy to be pegged as harmless.” I gave her a wink.
She smiled weakly. “So is it? Normal? What happened?”
“Well, it depends,” I began, “on what you call normal.” I ran a hand through my hair and shrugged. “You remember how I told you that violence is a part of our nature, as shifters, and that some are more violent than others, revel in it in fact, while some, like myself, don’t care for it so much and avoid it.”
She nodded at me.
“Well, you were in the throes of what we call thrall, which is what happens when you lose control of your beast. It’s almost like a bloodlust of sorts, except that it can happen without even the tiniest bit of blood being spilled. That’s what happens to those shifters who embrace the violence. Their animal is drawn to the violence, and when it occurs, they lose control, so it’s hard to not be that way, much easier to just give in and go along for the ride. We all give in to our beast occasionally, es
pecially when we hunt, but we give it control, it doesn’t take control.”
“So mine takes control then?” Her voice rose in pitch and her eyes widened in fear.
I gave her a sad nod. “Yes.”
“So how do I make it not?”
“An incredibly strong will. You won’t ever be able to keep it from trying to take control, but you can fight it, rein it in.”
“And if I can’t?”
“Then you will be at its mercy.”
Tears were streaming down her face. “I don’t want to be that way. What did I do wrong?”
I shook my head. “You did nothing wrong, Katie. It has something to do with the manner, situation, in which your beast is born, the first time you change.”
Her eyes closed and she shivered, leaning into Aerick for support. “They were killing me,” she whispered unevenly, “the first time I changed. Right after they killed Cody. And the second time, not very long after, I almost killed an innocent.”
The misery in her voice was so evident that I wanted to hold her myself, tell her everything would be okay, that she wasn’t a bad person, it was something that couldn’t be helped, she’d been in a situation beyond her control. All this, Aerick was doing, and I felt that stab of envy again.
“It won’t ever control me again,” she said, a sudden calm coming over her, resolution hardening in her eyes.
Inside, I applauded her resolve, but I knew it was going to be much harder than she anticipated. It was difficult enough to steer clear of the violence normally without having the addiction to it as well.
“Guys, I gotta take off, stuff I need to do upstairs.” Nina was standing. “You two take care of her. Maybe I’ll see you later?” The last part was directed at me before she headed up the stairs and I gave her a shrug. She just laughed and I heard the door shut behind her a few moments later.
“Be careful with that one,” Aerick said. “She has a boyfriend, and a bad tendency to cheat.”
“So I gathered from his comments earlier,” I replied. “Speaking of earlier, thanks for not killing Darien.” I said it dryly, but if this man had fended off multiple vampires single-handedly, I knew that he had the capability to do it, so my thanks were sincere.
He shrugged. “No thanks necessary. I didn’t do it for you, or him. I did it for Kat.”
“I’d really prefer if you just didn’t kill anybody, well, just because, Rick,” Katelyn said from inside the blanket, the calm gone from her voice to be replaced by perturbation.
He gave her a squeeze. “The world’s a dangerous place, babe. I’ve had to kill people before, and I’ll probably have to again. Not a whole lot I can do about it.”
She sighed heavily. “Yeah, that’s what worries me.”
“It’s my line of work, Kat, my job.”
“Well, maybe we need to find you another line of work,” she said petulantly.
He snorted. “That would be about as easy as making you not a shifter. What I am and do is as much my nature as what you are now.”
She closed her eyes and sighed again. “So, where did Darien disappear to?” she asked, changing the subject.
“Do we care?” Aerick asked, irritation evident in his voice.
“I do, yes,” she told him. She wasn’t looking at him when she said it and she missed the resignation that showed in his eyes.
“He’s across the street getting us rooms for the night.” I gave Aerick a sideways glance and hoped I wouldn’t get skewered for my next words. “He wants to talk to you, Katie. It’s important. Plus, your mom and Kris are there too.”
Her eyes lit up at the last part, then she frowned. “Well, Mom comes first, but Rick… I really should talk to Darien, it’s the right thing to do,” Katelyn said, giving Aerick a look that asked for understanding.
“It’s up to you. I’m not going to tell you what to do, Kat.”
“I owe him an explanation.” She was sliding off his lap, taking the blanket with her.
“You don’t owe him anything, Kat.”
“Yes, I do.” She walked away from us, into the bedroom area, and got clothes from the dresser, before heading into the bathroom to get dressed. She emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later, her hair pulled back in a loose ponytail and makeup repaired. Aerick stood and moved to her, putting a detaining hand on her arm.
“You don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” he told her.
“No, I don’t, but I need to, Rick. Please?” She put a hand over his where it lay on her arm.
“It’s okay. Go. Do what you need to.”
She reached up, placing her hands on either side of his face, before standing on tiptoe to give him a kiss. “I love you,” she whispered to him. He didn’t return the kiss or the comment, just stood perfectly still, and when she pulled back there were tears welling in her eyes again. “I’ll be back later.” And then she was heading up the stairs, her feet heavy on the steps, the door finally shutting behind her.
“So just what kind of fucking hold does he have on her, anyway?” Aerick demanded once she was gone.
There were a lot of things I could have told him: that Katelyn bore the reincarnated soul of Darien’s dead wife, and whether she knew it or not, she could feel the tug of that soul towards his; that he had permanently bonded to her the way wolves had a tendency to do; that she was a shifter, and shifters tended to be more attracted to other shifters. Instead I settle for the simplest and, what I figured would be the least annoying to him, explanation.
“He’s her Alpha.”
“That’s it? He says ‘jump’, you ask ‘how high’?” Aerick seemed affronted.
“Pretty much, yeah. It’s a pack thing, a shifter thing. If you’re going to be in a relationship with Katelyn, you might want to start learning about what she is or you might be in for a rude awakening.” I didn’t know the young man, but despite his trouncing of Darien, and Katelyn’s attachment to him, something about him made me like him.
“He’s not used to losing, is he?”
“Who?”
“Darien.”
“No, he’s not.”
Aerick smiled sardonically. “Glad I could be the one to knock his arrogant ass down a peg then.” He came over and sat back down in the chair. “So, why do you call her Katie?”
The question took me by surprise. I hadn’t realized that he had noticed. “I guess I don’t like the other nickname that everyone uses, especially due to the fact that she turns into a—”
“Cat?” he interrupted, snorting.
“Yeah.” I thought that was the reason anyway. I wasn’t entirely sure, only that it felt right for me to call her Katie instead of Kat. And she had never once asked me why herself. “Speaking of which, there’s something you should be aware of, if only to save yourself some heartache at some point.”
“What would that be?”
“Well, you know she’s a cat shifter…”
“Yes.” He raised an eyebrow at me, prompting me to continue.
“Cat shifters tend to be…” I paused, not quite sure how to word it without making it sound incredibly bad. “They tend to have slightly looser… morals.”
“And that means… what?” he asked, not following me.
“Means that Katelyn might have a hard time staying faithful to you, that’s what it means, whether she wants to or not.” I gave him a matter of fact shrug.
“She’s not the type to cheat,” he stated.
“I don’t think she is either, but, well, just figured I’d give you a heads up.”
He gave me a perfunctory nod. “Thanks, but I trust her, so I’m not going to worry too much about it.”
“Do you love her?”
He froze at the question, looking unsure of how to answer me, before finally settling on something. “Yeah, I think so, I don’t know. It’s complicated.”
“How is it complicated? Seems pretty easy to me. You either love her or you don’t. She obviously loves you, but you kind of gave her the cold shoulder t
here when she said it.”
“There’s someone else,” he said, sadness touching his face.
“That’s not fair to Katie,” I told him. “Does she know?”
“Yeah, Kat knows. That’s the complicated part… that and the fact that she’s dead.” He said it matter of factly but I could see that it still pained him.
I almost couldn’t believe the irony. “So, you’re still in love with a dead girl, and now you feel guilty because you have feelings for Katie?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Damn, you two are more alike than you’d like to admit,” I said, more to myself than to Aerick.
“Who?”
“Never mind.” I decided to change the subject. “Do me a favor, Aerick, will you? We need Katelyn to come with us to Reno tonight, or tomorrow, whenever we can get a car and drive out of here, and we need you to not talk her out of it.”
“Give me a good reason why I shouldn’t talk her out of it.” His eyes had narrowed suspiciously at me.
“Her father is in Reno.”
“Her father is dead,” he countered. “Stepfather too, and at your friend Darien’s hands, from what I’m told.”
I shook my head. “She thinks her father is dead. He faked his death when she was a baby. He came with us to Vegas to make sure you weren’t holding her against her will.”
He thought a moment. “Okay, so her dad’s alive. Why the sudden need after all this time to let her know about it?”
“Because of the change in the world, the revelation of supernaturals to the regular humans.”
His eyes went wide briefly in understanding. “So he’s the shifter then?”
“Yeah, but not just a shifter. He’s a vampire too, a rakshasa.”
He must have known the term because he sighed. “No fucking shit.” He rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. “So her father is a fucking vampire?”
“Hybrid.”
“Still undead either way you look at it. And she doesn’t know?”
“No. And he’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention it to her either. He’s afraid she won’t show up if she knows.”